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  • A day of legal action in Trump imbroglio previews a chaotic 2024 election year | CNN Politics

    A day of legal action in Trump imbroglio previews a chaotic 2024 election year | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A whirl of developments in a quartet of cases in four separate cities encapsulate the vast legal quagmire swamping Donald Trump and threatening to overwhelm the entire 2024 presidential campaign.

    But Monday’s hectic lawyering was just a tame preview of next year when the ex-president and current Republican front-runner may be constantly shuttling between courtroom criminal trials and the campaign trail.

    A day of legal intrigue brought revelations, judgments, disputes and filings in cases related to Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election, the classified documents case, efforts to thwart Joe Biden’s win in Georgia, and even in a defamation case dating back to Trump’s personal behavior toward women in the 1990s.

    It’s already almost impossible for voters who may be asked to decide whether Trump is fit for a return to the Oval Office – or at least to carry the GOP banner into the election – to keep pace with all the competing legal twists and the scale of his plight.

    A confusing fog in which all the cases blend together could work to the former president’s advantage as he seeks a White House comeback while proclaiming he’s a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration.

    But the deeper his legal mire gets, Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination are getting braver in suggesting that his fight against becoming a convicted felon could be a general election liability. Trump’s dominance in the GOP primary has been boosted from his criminal indictments to date. But the sheer volume of cases unfolding alongside his campaign is increasingly daunting.

    In Washington, Trump’s lawyers just beat a deadline to file a brief in a dispute over the handling of evidence ahead of a trial in the election subversion case, and accused the government of seeking to muzzle his voice as he runs for a new White House term.

    In another glimpse into the breadth of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation that could prove troubling to the ex-president, CNN exclusively reported that Trump ally Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, met Smith’s investigators for an interview on Monday. The discussion focused on what Trump’s former attorney and Kerik’s associate, Rudy Giuliani – otherwise known as Co-Conspirator 1 – did to try to convince the former president he actually won the 2020 election. The question will be a key one when the case finally comes to trial.

    Trump’s tough day in the courts had opened with a judge in Manhattan throwing out his defamation counter suit against E. Jean Carroll, which he did in stark language that recalled the ex-president’s loss in an earlier civil trial in which the jury found he sexually abused the writer.

    Then, in a surprise move in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Trump-appointed judge who will oversee his classified documents trial asked lawyers for co-defendant Walt Nauta to comment on the legality of prosecutors using a Washington grand jury to keep investigating. The fact the probe is still active despite several indictments is hardly a good sign for Trump. And Judge Aileen Cannon’s move revived debate over whether she was favoring the ex-president’s team following criticism of her earlier handling of a dispute over documents taken from Trump’s home in an FBI search.

    There were also new signs in Atlanta that indictments could be imminent in a probe into efforts to steal Biden’s election win in the key state, as it emerged that ex-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican and CNN political contributor, has been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury.

    All of this frenzied activity unfolding on one day represents just a snapshot of the complex legal morass now surrounding Trump. It’s just a taste of the enormous strain the ex-president is about to feel as he campaigns for a return to the Oval Office. The crush of cases will also impose increasing financial demands. Already, Trump’s leadership PAC has been diverting cash raised from small-dollar donors to pay legal fees for the former president and associates that might instead have gone toward the 2024 campaign.

    In several of the cases on Monday, there were signs of the extraordinary complications inherent in prosecuting a former president and the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Judges, for instance, are faced with decisions that would normally go unnoticed by the public in the court system but that will now attract a glaring media and political spotlight.

    And while Monday was notable for a head-spinning sequence of legal maneuvering, it did not even encompass all of the pending cases against Trump. He is also due to go on trial in March – in the middle of the GOP primary season – in a case arising from a hush money payment to an adult film star. As with his other indictments, Trump has pleaded not guilty.

    For all his capacity to operate in the eye of converging storms of scandal and controversy, Trump’s mood is becoming increasingly agitated. In recent days he has attacked Smith, the Justice Department, the judge in the election subversion case, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, and even the US national women’s soccer team after they crashed out of the World Cup on penalties.

    One of Trump’s most incendiary posts on his Truth Social network was at the center of one of Monday’s legal dramas – wrangling between Smith’s prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers over the handling of evidence at the center of the forthcoming trial.

    Prosecutors cited Trump writing on his Truth Social network on Friday, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” in a filing that requested strict rules on how he could use evidence that will be turned over to the defense as part of the pre-trial discovery process. Trump’s lawyers had asked for an extension to Monday’s deadline, but Judge Tanya Chutkan refused, in a fresh sign of her possible willingness to schedule a swift trial, which the ex-president wants to delay until after the 2024 election.

    In its brief, the defense proposed narrower rules than those sought by prosecutors. Spats over discovery aren’t unusual early in a trial process. But Trump’s filing added insight into how his team will approach a case in which he has pleaded not guilty.

    “In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights,” the attorneys said in the court filing.

    When it comes to Smith’s indictment, Trump’s lawyers are arguing that he was within his rights to claim the election was stolen. Smith’s strategy is, however, apparently designed to avoid a First Amendment trap, and alleges that the criminal activity occurred not in what Trump said, but in actions like the ex-president’s pressure on local officials over the election and on former Vice President Mike Pence to delay its certification.

    The Trump team’s filing went on to claim that the case was in itself an example of political victimization of their client, underscoring the fusion between his courtroom defense and his presidential campaign.

    “Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members, and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations,” the filing said.

    In a Monday night order, Chutkan signaled she would hold a hearing this week on the dispute and told the parties to come up with, by 3 p.m. Tuesday, two options for when such a hearing could be held this week.

    Any prolonged debate over the terms of the pre-discovery process – let alone the many other expected pre-trial motions – will play into the hands of the defense. Trump is showing every sign that part of his motivation in running for a second White House term is to reacquire executive powers that could lead to federal cases against him being frozen. The timing of the January 6, 2021, case, and any potential conviction, is therefore hugely significant with a general election looming in November 2024.

    Trump has called for the recusal of Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. His legal team has called for a shift of trial venue away from the diverse US capital, potentially to West Virginia, one of the Whitest and most pro-Trump states in the nation. These pre-trial gambits are unlikely to succeed. But they help to create extreme pressure on the judge and to build a case for Trump supporters that the legal process is biased against him – a narrative that could provide especially inflammatory if he is eventually convicted.

    Trump’s rhetoric about the case has raised some concerns about the possibility of witness intimidation – especially as some of his supporters who were tried for their part in the mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, have testified that they were spurred to action by his rhetoric.

    CNN observed increased security around Chutkan on Monday. Security is also increased around the Superior Court in Fulton County, Georgia, where a decision is expected in days on whether to hit Trump with a fourth criminal indictment.

    Any normal political candidate would have seen their political ambitions crushed by even one of the cases in Trump’s bulging portfolio of legal jeopardy. It is, however, a sign of the ex-president’s extraordinary and unbroken hold on the Republican Party and its voters that he is still the runaway front-runner in the primary.

    But one of his top rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is slowly becoming more willing to criticize Trump publicly, after being cautious about alienating Trump supporters who feel the ex-president is the victim of a political witch hunt. DeSantis told NBC that “of course” Trump lost the 2024 election, as he blitzes early voting states New Hampshire and Iowa and makes the case that the ex-president’s legal exposure is a distraction the GOP cannot afford if it is to oust Biden from the White House after a single term. It may seem absurd that DeSantis is risking his political career by stating the obvious truth about the 2020 election, but Trump has made signing up to his false reality a test of loyalty among base voters.

    And Pence, who rejected Trump’s public pressure to thwart the certification of Biden’s election – a scheme at the center of Smith’s case – indicated over the weekend that he may testify in Trump’s trial if required to do so by law.

    The spectacle of a former vice presidential running mate testifying against the man who picked him for his ticket would be an extreme twist even in the Trump era of shattered political conventions.

    Thanks to Trump’s unfathomable and widening legal nightmare, nothing about the 2024 election is going to be anywhere near normal.

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  • Trump argues against more restrictive rules over evidence in 2020 election interference case | CNN Politics

    Trump argues against more restrictive rules over evidence in 2020 election interference case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump’s legal team has proposed narrower rules than those sought by prosecutors over what he can do with evidence he is provided in the criminal election interference case.

    In a new court filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers leaned heavily into claims that special counsel prosecutors are on a politically motivated campaign to restrict his First Amendment rights.

    “In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights,” the attorneys said in the court filing. “Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members, and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations.”

    Prosecutors have proposed a more restrictive protective order over evidence in the case, pointing to Trump’s public statements that they say could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

    The latest filing shows that prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers are in disagreement over the most granular details of the so-called protective order, a type of order that can usually be issued in a case without much drama.

    The Justice Department previously hasn’t asked for any special protections over records Trump’s team already has that may relate to the case, or information that’s already publicly available.

    Smith’s and Trump’s teams have also fought bitterly in court filings over the schedule for resolving the dispute over the rules.

    Trump’s new submission to US District Judge Tanya Chutkan – who rejected his weekend bid to push back the deadline for his response to the prosecutors’ proposal – pointed to comments from President Joe Biden and even a meme posted on his Twitter account that Trump’s lawyers claim show how Biden has “capitalized on the indictment.”

    Trump’s lawyers acknowledged in the filing that there was a need to keep private certain classes of evidence handed over to him in the case, suggesting that – despite the tone of their submission – their position was not actually that far apart from what prosecutors recommended.

    “However, the need to protect that information does not require a blanket gag order over all documents produced by the government,” the Trump filing said. “Rather, the Court can, and should, limit its protective order to genuinely sensitive materials – a less restrictive alternative that would satisfy any government interest in confidentiality while preserving the First Amendment rights of President Trump and the public.”

    Among the changes to the Smith team proposal that Trump is asking for is a narrowing of what would be considered “sensitive” discovery materials in the case – a subset of documents for which prosecutors are seeking stricter disclosure rules. The former president also wants to expand who can access certain evidentiary materials, so to include people not being employed to work on Trump’s case, such as volunteers.

    Trump’s lawyers also recommended changes to procedures for establishing how non-public evidence will be dealt with during pre-trial proceedings, as well as in trial.

    Prosecutors in a criminal case can seek a protective order from a court to prevent defendants from speaking publicly about sensitive and confidential information produced during discovery in the case.

    The government usually asks for such orders to ensure other individuals involved in a case – like witnesses – won’t be potentially subjected to undue pressure by defendants in a case. Such orders also often hew to federal rules that limit what can be made public from a grand jury proceeding and under what circumstances that information can be disclosed. Requests for the orders are routine, and judges typically issue them in both criminal and civil cases.

    Unlike protective orders, which tend to be narrow in scope, a gag order prevents a defendant from talking publicly about a pending case. These orders are seen more often in high-profile cases but are still less common than protective orders due to the constitutional concerns surrounding them.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • DeSantis on Trump’s 2020 claims: ‘Of course he lost’ | CNN Politics

    DeSantis on Trump’s 2020 claims: ‘Of course he lost’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said “of course” Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, his the most direct comments on the matter in the nearly three years since the former president’s defeat.

    “Of course he lost,” DeSantis told NBC News in an interview that aired Sunday. “Joe Biden’s the president.”

    The remarks follow DeSantis’ comments on Friday in which he told reporters in Decorah, Iowa, that “theories” put out by the former president and his associates following the 2020 election were “unsubstantiated” and “did not prove to be true.”

    DeSantis had previously avoided such forceful pronouncements about Trump’s defeat. He was among the first to suggest that state legislatures could change election results in certain states, earning public praise from Trump’s inner circle at the time. In the years after, though, DeSantis has largely ducked questions about the veracity of the election results.

    Yet DeSantis continues to argue it was not a “perfect election” – citing actions taken by states to ease voting access during the pandemic – and went on to criticize Trump for funding mail-in ballots through the CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill passed in 2020 in response to the coronavirus crisis.

    “But here’s the issue that I think is important for Republican voters to think about: Why did we have all those mail votes? Because of Trump turned the government over to (Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases). They embraced lockdowns. They did the CARES Act, which funded mail-in ballots across the country,” DeSantis told NBC.

    Unmentioned by DeSantis is that he once praised the CARES Act when it was signed, saying it provided “critical resources” in the fight against Covid-19.

    “We thank President Trump for this much-needed support and look forward to our continued work to defeat Covid-19 and emerge stronger than before,” DeSantis said at the time.

    Nor did DeSantis note that he, too, took unilateral action as governor to let local election offices process mail-in ballots earlier than state law allows to address concerns about adequate staffing and a surge in voting remotely due to the coronavirus. Elsewhere, Republican state legislatures blocked Democratic requests to take similar measures in states like Pennsylvania, where the prolonged counting of ballots became fodder for election conspiracies.

    Voting by mail is incredibly popular in Florida, including by voters from his party. Nearly 2.8 million Floridians voted by mail in 2022 – when DeSantis was reelected by a historically wide margin – including more than 1 million registered Republicans.

    As he often does when faced with questions about the 2020 election, DeSantis in his interview with NBC motioned toward the future and how the 2024 election must be a “referendum on Joe Biden’s policies” and “failures” rather than relitigating the past.

    He argued Republicans will lose if they focus on “January 6, 2021, or what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago.” However, as Trump stares down three criminal indictments related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents, hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, these issues have taken center stage, all while Trump maintains an overwhelming lead.

    On Friday in Waverly, Iowa, DeSantis made the case for “healing divisions” and moving beyond Trump’s legal woes.

    “We got to look forward. We got to start healing divisions in this country,” DeSantis told reporters. “All of this stuff that’s going on, I think it’s just exacerbating the divisions. And so sometimes there’s a larger picture that you have to look at, and I will be looking at that larger picture wanting to move forward for the sake of the country.”

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  • The anti-abortion movement is fractured over what it wants from its first post-Roe GOP presidential nominee | CNN Politics

    The anti-abortion movement is fractured over what it wants from its first post-Roe GOP presidential nominee | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Bernie Hayes has spent most Mondays since the overturning of Roe v. Wade meeting with friends outside of an Iowa Planned Parenthood trying to stop abortions one at a time. He huddles monthly with other like-minded activists plotting more wholesale paths to halting the procedure.

    Lately, Hayes, an elder at Noelridge Park Church in Cedar Rapids, has observed more dissent among anti-abortion allies who once worked in harmony. Some see the fall of Roe as a one-time chance to ban abortion entirely while others are worried about the political consequences of pushing too hard too quickly.

    “Sadly, it becomes divisive to the point where we just get fractured,” Hayes said. “I can only imagine what the division looks like on a national scale.”

    Those divisions are spilling out into the 2024 Republican presidential primary, as leading anti-abortion organizations are offering candidates conflicting guidance on an issue that has galvanized the political right for half a century. Recent polling shows Republican voters aren’t providing candidates much more clarity.

    Lynda Bell, the president of Florida Right to Life, bristled at the suggestion that Republican candidates must back a federal abortion ban.

    “There’s nothing in the Constitution that talks about abortion and this issue should be decided by the states,” she said.

    But other leaders of anti-abortion groups want GOP candidates to be unflinching in their support for more hardline policies.

    “Anyone in the pro-life movement is looking very carefully at the current candidates that are running for president, and those who are not advocating strongly on this issue are going to be the ones that are not going to get the confidence and get the vote of the pro-life movement,” said Maggie DeWitte, the executive director of the Iowa anti-abortion group Pulse Life Advocates.

    Candidates are cautiously navigating the unclear expectations of conservative voters as they search for their first presidential nominee in a post-Roe America. Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the two highest-polling candidates for the GOP nomination, have routinely dodged questions on the trail about whether they would sign a national abortion ban and at how many weeks into a pregnancy they would support such federal legislation.

    Meanwhile, candidates who have expressed more defined views on the topic – like former Vice President Mike Pence, a backer of a federal ban, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said the federal government “should not be involved” in the abortion debate – have yet to gain traction with Republican voters.

    Whoever is the GOP nominee will face an electorate that has so far handed anti-abortion advocates a series of stinging defeats since the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson last summer. In the immediate aftermath of the court’s ruling, Kansans voted overwhelmingly to keep abortion legal in the state. In November, Michiganders at the ballot box enshrined abortion access in the state constitution. This week in Wisconsin, liberal justice Janet Protasiewicz started her term on the state Supreme Court after winning a spring race, during which she campaigned on protecting abortion access.

    The enthusiasm displayed by abortion-rights activists in the past 12 months will be tested again on Tuesday when Ohioans will decide whether to raise the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment, a referendum that would have significant implications for a fall ballot question ensure “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s reproductive decisions.”

    “We need to start winning hearts and minds,” Hayes said. “I don’t think we can worry about a federal ban until you can do that.”

    Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a national anti-abortion group, has clashed with the GOP contenders for the nomination as the organization enforces its own red line for presidential candidates: a 15-week federal ban.

    When Trump’s campaign suggested in April that abortion should be decided at the state level, Marjorie Dannenfelser, the organization’s president, called it “a morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate to hold.” It was a stunning break between one of the country’s most influential anti-abortion groups and the president who nominated the three Supreme Court justices that helped secure the movement’s watershed victory. Trump and Dannenfelser later met to clear the air, though Trump has still evaded outlining his views on the issue.

    Dannenfelser similarly said it was “not acceptable” when another candidate, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, stated “it’s not realistic” to expect a gridlocked Congress to find consensus on federal abortion legislation.

    And, in a blistering rebuke this week, Dannenfelser questioned DeSantis’ leadership after he once again declined to back a federal abortion.

    “A pro-life president has a duty to protect the lives of all Americans,” she said. “He should be the National Defender of Life.”

    DeSantis dismissed the criticism during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, where he noticeably drops references to his state’s new abortion law – which bans most abortions after six weeks – from his stump speech.

    “Different groups, you know, are gonna have different agendas, but I can tell you this: Nobody running has actually delivered pro-life protections,” DeSantis said. “I have done that.”

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott seized on the fissure between DeSantis and the leading abortion group, writing in a social media post that, “Republicans should not be retreating on life.” He added, “We need a national 15-week limit to stop blue states from pushing abortion on demand.”

    Scott, though, also struggled to define the federal role in the next frontier for the anti-abortion movement after he entered the presidential race in May.

    The anti-abortion movement is not totally aligned behind Dannenfelser. Carol Tobias, the president of the National Right to Life Committee, said she thought it was a mistake to have a political litmus test for Republican presidential candidates on abortion and argued doing so would only serve to splinter the party ahead of the general election. It “doesn’t help” for SBA Pro-Life America to set a 15-week national ban as its standard for GOP candidates, Tobias said, arguing that there were more realistic goals to work towards, like ensuring zero tax dollars are used to fund abortions

    “If we’re not going to get a national law on abortion through Congress, why focus on it?” Tobias told CNN.

    Republican voters appear similarly divided. A New York Times/Siena College national survey released this week found more Republicans favored some exceptions (33%) than a total ban (22%). Meanwhile, one-third said they believed abortion should be mostly or always legal.

    But among White evangelical Republican voters – whose influence is especially pronounced in the early nominating contests in Iowa and South Carolina – opposition is higher. More than three-fourths responded that abortion should be always or mostly illegal.

    Further complicating the calculus for the Republican field is that the GOP voters least likely to vote for Trump are among the most likely to support at least some protections for abortion. For those Republicans who said they are not open to voting for Trump, only 11% support a total ban while more than half said they want abortion to be legal in most situations.

    The clashing opinions underscore the political tightrope Republican candidates are walking after their party underperformed in the 2022 midterms in an election held just months after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Some Republicans – including Trump – have blamed it for the party’s losses, pointing to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s failed attempt to push a federal ban through Congress last year as strategically unsound.

    “I thought, ‘What is Lindsey Graham doing?’” Bell said. “The Supreme Court just said it was a state decision. I was baffled.”

    But there are also fears within the anti-abortion movement that Republicans won’t act to preserve their chances at the ballot box.

    “Some say, ‘Let’s just ignore it,’” Hayes, the Cedar Rapids church elder, said. “For me the worst thing can happen is that it’s either very diluted or taken out of the platform all together. I hope we won’t go there. But if we’re going to talk about it, we need to do it in a smart way.”

    In Hayes’ state, Republicans that control Iowa’s government moved to ban most abortions in the state as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the measure into law at last month’s Family Leadership Summit, where most of the GOP field had assembled to speak directly to the state’s evangelical and Christian voters. Many Republican candidates heaped praise on Reynolds for signing the law, though most have not advocated for similar legislation at the federal level.

    Trump, who has notably not weighed in on Iowa’s law, did not attend the summit and has privately said he considers abortion a losing issue for Republicans. Publicly, he called Florida’s six-week abortion ban “too harsh,” testing conservatives who once celebrated Trump’s place in ending Roe.

    “I think many in the pro-life movement were disappointed to hear him talk about life not being a winning issue, and sort of attacking the heartbeat bill and some of the other legislation that’s coming down as being ‘too harsh,’” DeWitte said. “I think that really turned off people in the pro-life movement.”

    Joni Lupis, a pastor and president and director of March For Life New York, said she is wary of candidates who aren’t taking a stance on the issue or offering realistic answers.

    “Let’s be honest: The president can’t just declare no more abortion in the whole world,” Lupis said. “They can say they will but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. That’s politics and we’ll have to wait and see what they have to do. I like a person that says what they believe. If you believe something, you should stand behind and declare it.”

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  • Kentucky Republicans seek to nationalize gubernatorial race as state Democrats keep focus local | CNN Politics

    Kentucky Republicans seek to nationalize gubernatorial race as state Democrats keep focus local | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Kentucky Republicans are seeking to tie Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to President Joe Biden as they work to take back the governor’s mansion in November, a strategy that state Democrats have pushed back on with a focus on local issues.

    Biden remains unpopular in the deep red state, and with the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, the Republican gubernatorial nominee and Kentucky’s Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, is in a tight race to lock down the state for the GOP.

    At the historic Fancy Farm picnic in Western Kentucky this weekend, Cameron told a combined crowd of Democrats and Republicans, “Andy Beshear and Joe Biden are liberal elites that have a lot of rules for you, and none for themselves.”

    “The governor has the audacity to lecture Kentuckians on right and wrong when he and Joe Biden can’t even tell the difference between a man and a woman,” he added, to loud boos from the Democratic side.

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell similarly tied Kentucky’s governor to the president telling voters, “Biden and Beshear aren’t working for Kentucky. Andy might as well be on the White House payroll.”

    The Beshear campaign, however, has argued the race is not about Biden or national politics. Beshear didn’t mention Biden once in his speech Saturday – focusing instead on how he handled major crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, tornadoes that devastated the state, as well as floods and a mass shooting in which Beshear knew one of the victims.

    “Daniel Cameron will show up for a political rally but not for tornado survivors,” Beshear said at the picnic.

    The dueling messages came as Beshear, Cameron, and candidates for other state offices across Kentucky descended on the town of Fancy Farm for their annual picnic and barbecue this weekend, a tradition that has become a mainstay of state politics.

    The picnic took on particular importance this year as it showcased each side’s messaging posture in a race that carries significant implications for 2024’s elections.

    The Kentucky race will test whether a Democratic incumbent can survive in a deep-red state where his party’s voter registration advantage has been erased in recent years and the political environment is increasingly dominated by national themes.

    Though he has remained popular, Republicans argue that Beshear’s 0.4-percentage-point-victory was the result of an unfavorable political landscape – one that has shifted drastically in recent years.

    One Kentucky GOP voter, Brian Smith, told CNN on Saturday of Beshear: “I think he’s absolutely chasing the National Democratic Party. But when decisions needed to be made about supporting small businesses, about keeping kids in school and keeping churches open, he was on the wrong side of those decisions.”

    Another Cameron supporter came to the picnic in a Biden mask, carrying a sign that read “Beshear’s #1 fan.”

    But Jeremy Edge, a Beshear supporter, told CNN, “I think they’re trying to make Andy out as some sort of radical, which is a mess because he is a straight arrow kind of dude, and the negative stuff, it’s kind of gross.”

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  • Kentucky voters weigh in on McConnell’s health scare | CNN Politics

    Kentucky voters weigh in on McConnell’s health scare | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke Saturday at the Fancy Farm picnic, one of Kentucky’s classic political events, but his remarks were largely drowned out by jeers from the Democratic side of the crowd, who stomped their feet and yelled, “RETIRE,” and “DITCH MITCH” as he spoke.

    McConnell’s appearance at the picnic comes amid recent questions about his health and political future. Late last month, he froze mid-sentence during a press conference in the US Capitol and had to be led away from the podium by his fellow senators and his aides. The Republican leader, 81, later returned and answered questions from the press, telling CNN’s Manu Raju, “I’m fine.”

    In a statement several days after the incident, McConnell’s office said that he plans to continue to serve as Senate minority leader until the end of the 118th Congress. However, they did not say whether he plans to run for leader again in 2025, or for reelection to the Senate in 2026.

    Speculation about McConnell’s future has become more common since he suffered a concussion and broken ribs after a fall in March. He was hospitalized and spent several weeks recuperating, including some time at an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

    Earlier Saturday, McConnell entered the Graves County Republican Party Breakfast to a standing ovation and applause. But voters expressed some concern about how his health will affect his ability to continue serving in the Senate.

    “This is my 28th Fancy Farm and I want to assure you it’s not my last,” McConnell told the crowd. “The people of this state have chosen me seven times to do this job, and I want you to know how grateful I am,” he added.

    One young voter at the Graves County breakfast, Garrett Whiten, told CNN, “I think his time is probably about up.”

    “I’m against older candidates, the current president, Mitch McConnell,” he added. “I think that they’ve run their course in politics, I think they’d be good for backing people now. But I think politics now is more of a young man’s game.”

    However, some are willing to vote for him if he runs in 2026, despite their concerns.

    “I’d vote for him. I, like all of his supporters, are concerned about – I want him to be healthy and safe,” said Phil Myers.

    “But if he’s the Republican nominee, I will vote for him again, as I’ve voted for him every time he’s run, and I’d support him every way I could.”

    Myers maintained that McConnell has “never backed down from a challenge. If I were 80 years old, and had a concussion, it’d take me a couple of months or a year to get over that. I mean, it’s normal, what doctors will tell you, that’s normal for a person that age.”

    He continued, “He’s a very smart man. I mean, he’s been able to keep things from far left California, some of those ideas they have from being national policy. So I support Mitch McConnell.”

    CNN has previously reported that McConnell also fell two other times in 2023, once on a trip to Finland to meet with the nation’s president, and at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, as he was exiting a plane.

    McConnell freezes in press conference and is unable to finish statement

    McConnell survived polio as a child, resulting in a slight limp that has grown more pronounced in recent years. In 2019 he suffered a fall at home in Kentucky and fractured his shoulder.

    Every year, on the first Saturday in August, Kentucky’s politicians descend on the rural town of Fancy Farm in the Western corner of the state. While the voters and their families eat barbecue, play bingo, compete in a 5k race and enter raffles, candidates for every office from governor to state auditor to agricultural commissioner gather to give speeches and glad-hand with their constituents.

    The picnic is hosted by St. Jerome, a Catholic Church in town, and boasts “the world’s largest one-day barbecue” as well as a long history of political speeches.

    “While each picnic brings something unique, they all have three things in common: hot weather, hot barbecue and hot politics,” the Church’s website reads.

    “Some of the nation’s most prominent politicians have addressed the crowds from the speakers’ stand, dating back to US Vice-President Alben Barkley, a native of the nearby town of Wheel, Kentucky,” the Church adds. “Attending in 1975 was Presidential candidate George Wallace, who had survived an assassination attempt to another part of the country. He told the crowd he was still ‘a little gun-shy’ after a photographer’s flash bulb exploded twice during a misty rain.”

    Republicans at Saturday’s picnic were deferential toward the Senate Republican leader, giving him another standing ovation as he entered. Rep. James Comer began his remarks by saying “I want to thank Senator Mitch McConnell for the close working relationship that he and I have,” and McConnell joked that the event’s emcee, David Beck, took longer to introduce the senator than he was allotted to speak.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Trump heads to South Carolina after a week filled with his legal drama | CNN Politics

    Trump heads to South Carolina after a week filled with his legal drama | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump is set to visit South Carolina on Saturday, wrapping up a week that has been defined by his historic third indictment.

    Trump’s Saturday trip to the early-primary state – he’ll visit Columbia, South Carolina, for the state GOP’s Silver Elephant Dinner – follows a Friday night stop in Alabama. The two were his first campaign events after his arraignment Thursday in Washington,DC, in special prosecutor Jack Smith’s investigation into his efforts to remain in the White House despite losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

    In Montgomery on Friday night, Trump conflated his actions in seeking to overturn the 2020 election with those of Democrats, including Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Stacey Abrams after the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, in the wake of their losses. He said he faces “bogus charges.”

    He also said if he is elected in 2024, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden’s family.

    “When they indicted their political opponent and they did that, I said, well, now the gloves are off,” Trump said of Biden. “The Republicans better get tough, and they better get smart, because most of them look like a bunch of weak jerks right now. … You have to fight fire with fire. You can’t allow this to go on.”

    Trump’s campaign on Friday went on the attack against the prosecutors who have brought cases against or are investigating the former president. It released a video attacking those prosecutors one day after Trump was arrested and arraigned for a third time.

    The video attacks Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, dubbing the group the “Fraud Squad.”

    “Meet the cast of unscrupulous accomplices he’s assembled to get Trump,” the narrator says in the video of Biden.

    The video also uses footage of Biden falling off his bike and tripping up the stairs to Air Force One.

    Lashing out over the costs of defending himself and his allies in myriad legal battles, Trump also called for the Supreme Court to “intercede.”

    “CRAZY! My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, including D.A., A.G., and others, which require massive amounts of my time & money to adjudicate,” Trump complained on Truth Social. “Resources that would have gone into Ads and Rallies, will now have to be spent fighting these Radical Left Thugs in numerous courts throughout the Country. I am leading in all Polls, including against Crooked Joe, but this is not a level playing field. It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede.”

    His campaign has used the legal proceedings as a fundraising tool, hauling in small-dollar donations.

    “Trump is in THE AIR!” his campaign said in an email to supporters Thursday. “Before he arrives at the courthouse for his hearing, can 10,000 pro-Trump patriots sign on to defend him & end the witch hunt?”

    A handful of GOP presidential candidates, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, have criticized Trump’s actions.

    Hurd, on Fox News on Thursday, said that Trump’s court appearance was the “third time in four months in courts. It’s unacceptable, we didn’t have to be here.”

    Former Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign is selling T-shirts and hats branded with the phrase “Too Honest,” referencing a phrase Trump allegedly uttered to Pence when he refused to go along with the then-president’s request to reject electoral votes and change the outcome of the 2020 election.

    According to the federal indictment, in one conversation on January 1, 2021, Trump told Pence he was “too honest” when the then-vice president said that he lacked the authority to change the results.

    After Trump was indicted earlier this week, Pence said that “anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president” and added that Trump “was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers who kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear.”

    However, much of the Republican field has so far refused to take aim at Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which are at the heart of the federal charges he faces in Washington.

    Trump’s top-polling rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on Friday said he would pardon Trump if he is elected in 2024. He also defended the former president, arguing that the laws federal prosecutors say Trump broke were “never intended to apply to this type of situation.”

    The Florida governor, who was campaigning in Iowa, told reporters his candidacy for president would be focused on the future and starting to heal “divisions in this country.”

    DeSantis indicated that he would pardon Trump if he were convicted, echoing comments he recently made on “Outkick” with Clay Travis.

    “I’ve said for many weeks now, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the country to have a former president – that’s almost 80 years old – go to prison. Just like Nixon or Ford pardoned Nixon, you know, sometimes you got to put this stuff behind you,” he said.

    DeSantis’ comments underscored the reality that most of Trump’s 2024 GOP rivals see little to gain by angering a base that is still largely supportive of the former president.

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on Friday criticized the Justice Department for the “weaponization of their power” in his first on-camera reaction to the third indictment and arraignment of Trump.

    Scott told reporters following an immigration roundtable event in Yuma, Arizona, he believes DOJ spends “a lot of time hunting Republicans” while protecting Democrats, specifically referencing the president’s son Hunter Biden.

    “My perspective is that the DOJ continues to weaponize their power against political opponents. It seems like they spend a lot of time protecting Hunter Biden and Democrats and a lot of time hunting Republicans,” Scott said.

    The most recent polls show that Trump remains the clear front-runner in the 2024 GOP primary. A poll of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa from The New York Times/Siena College released Friday showed Trump with 44% support, compared to DeSantis’ 20% and Scott’s 9%, with no other candidate topping 5%.

    His lead is even wider nationally. Trump holds the support of 54% of likely GOP primary voters, a New York Times/Siena College poll released earlier this week found, while DeSantis has 17% support and no other candidate exceeds 3%.

    Just 17% of likely Republican primary voters think that Trump has “committed any serious federal crimes,” and only 10% more say that although they don’t think he committed a serious crime, he “did something wrong in his handling of classified documents.” Three-quarters (75%) say that after the 2020 elections, Trump “was just exercising his right to contest the election,” while only 19% believe he “went so far that he threatened American democracy.” And 71% say that regarding the investigations Trump is facing, Republicans “need to stand behind Trump.”

    The Republican base could be at odds with the broader electorate: Two-thirds of Americans (65%) say that the charges Trump faces over efforts to overturn the 2020 elections are serious, according to a new poll from ABC News and Ipsos conducted after Trump’s latest indictment.

    There are broad partisan gaps in views of the seriousness of the new charges, with 91% of Democrats calling them serious along with 67% of independents, though just 38% of Republicans agree. The gap between Democrats and Republicans widens to 65 points when looking at those who call the charges “very serious” (84% of Democrats feel that way vs. 19% of Republicans; 53% of independents say the same).

    While many of Trump’s rivals are carefully avoiding direct confrontation with the former president, Trump is taking direct aim at DeSantis.

    Top Trump advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita sent an open memo on Thursday attacking DeSantis’ efforts to reboot his campaign.

    “DeSantis’s campaign is marred by idiocy,” the memo reads, as it touts Trump’s lead in polls over his GOP rivals.

    The memo compared DeSantis’ campaign to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 bid and argued both campaigns overspent and didn’t fundraise enough. The late McCain and Trump had a bitter feud for years.

    “John McCain did not spend the opening week of his reboot explaining why his staff produced a video with Nazi imagery, and defending his comments that slavery provided ‘some benefit’ to enslaved Americans – while attacking black Republicans publicly in the process,” the memo reads, referencing several recent missteps DeSantis and his campaign have made.

    Developments on Capitol Hill also underscored that most of the GOP has not abandoned Trump.

    North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a member of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Republican leadership team, on Thursday called on Congress to scrutinize the federal investigation into Trump’s actions.

    Tillis said in a statement that the new indictment carries “a heavy burden” to show that “criminal conduct actually occurred.”

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  • DeSantis appointee to Disney board taught seminar using discredited research claiming White people were slaves in America | CNN Politics

    DeSantis appointee to Disney board taught seminar using discredited research claiming White people were slaves in America | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    An appointee by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to an oversight board of Disney’s special tax district taught a seminar in 2021 falsely claiming “Whites were also slaves in America,” using discredited research to say there was an “Irish slave trade.”

    The comments were made by Ron Peri, one of five people DeSantis appointed earlier this year to oversee the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District to replace the old board after the company spoke out against what critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida.

    Peri, an Orlando-based pastor and CEO of a Christian ministry group called The Gathering, made the comments in an hourlong class for his group posted on YouTube about critical race theory called “Cunningly Devised Fables.”

    In other comments Peri spread false claims that Irish slaves were forcibly bred with enslaved Africans. He also said a “significant” number of free Blacks in the antebellum era owned slaves, claims disputed by reputable historians who say the number was minimal. CNN archived Peri’s comments from 2021, which he deleted from YouTube following his appointment to the Disney oversight board.

    The oversight board, previously called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, governed Disney’s sprawling 25,000 acre footprint around Orlando. Created in 1967, its duties include providing services like sewage, fire rescue and road maintenance and issuing debt for infrastructure projects supporting Disney’s theme park empire.

    “Slavery is a moral wrong wherever it exists or existed and is one of America’s great historical wrongs,” Peri told CNN in a statement Tuesday. “Similarly, racism is likewise wrong. I countenance neither to any degree, so the criticism of the belief that thousands of people being held in slavery was significant and a terrible wrong is severely misplaced. Even one person in slavery is egregious and morally reprehensible, regardless of race.”

    The DeSantis administration but did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Peri’s 2021 comments came in the context of him pushing back on claims of “systemic racism” in the United States from past White ownership of slaves.

    “Look at old newspapers, as old as you can find, and you’ll find that Whites were also slaves in America,” said Peri. “The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the new world. His proclamation of 1625, which you can go back and see, required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies.”

    “By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat,” Peri added. “From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English, and another 300,000 were sold as slaves.”

    “The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion,” Peri added.

    Peri’s claims are based on fabricated material that has circled the Internet over the last two decades and has been the subject of repeated debunkings from news organizations like the New York Times, Reuters, the Associated Press, Snopes, and frustrated historians – many of whom signed an open letter in 2016 disputing the claims.

    Even the article Peri cited as evidence was updated before he used it in the seminar to note it contained a number of factual errors.

    Historians who spoke to CNN said that the research Peri cited is ahistorical and based on invented research: Whites were never considered slaves in America, legally or socially; 300,000 Irish were not sent as slaves to the Americas; English King James II – who Peri cited as issuing the proclamation in 1625 – was not born until 1633 and did not take the throne until 1685. Even then, no proclamations by King James II on Irish slaves exist. The Irish did not “breed” with African slaves, as Peri claimed.

    Irish immigrants in North America and the Caribbean were never considered slaves but were indentured servants, said Matthew Reilly, a professor of anthropology at City College of New York.

    Indentured servitude consisted of a fixed period of time, usually five to seven years, and was not inheritable. Whereas the race-based chattel form of slavery kept enslaved people as property for life and children would inherit their mother’s status.

    “The conditions may have been like that of slavery, but socio-legally, it was a very different form of unfreedom,” said Reilly.

    In another comment, Peri used data attributed to the 1830 census to say the numbers showed a “significant” and “large number” of free Blacks owned slaves. However, the 1830 census data cited by scholars show that out of 2,009,043 slaves in the United States, 3,776 free Blacks owned 12,907 slaves – 0.006%.

    “The justification that they have for it is they claim that systemic racism emanates from White ownership of slaves,” Peri said. “Therefore, all White wealth is based on the hard work and abuse of Black slaves and women. That’s their justification. Well, the reality is all races owned slaves.”

    “A significant number of these free Blacks were the owners of slaves,” Peri added.

    Historians, like esteemed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have noted that a large number of those Black slave owners “owned” their own family members to protect them – oftentimes by purchasing a family member. And that pointing to other races owning slaves is a way to minimize the brutal realities of slavery.

    “The vast majority, the overwhelming majority – to the tune of millions of people who were brought from West and West Central Africa to the Americas – they were enslaved. Not people who were perpetrating slavery themselves,” Jenny Shaw, a professor of history at the University of Alabama, told CNN. “There’s a small number who did because they rose up in society and did what society was doing, which was enslaving people.” And that some people of African descent enslaved people because they were family members bringing them into their households with the intent of freeing them.

    Peri’s unearthed comments come amidst the controversy over the Florida Board of Education’s new standards for teaching Black history.

    Peri’s appointment to the Disney oversight board followed a clash between the company and DeSantis over a state law that would restrict certain classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity. While Disney first declined to weigh in publicly on the legislative fight over what critics called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, then CEO Bob Chapek, under immense pressure from the company’s employees, later changed directions, and shared his concerns with the legislation. Later, after it became law, the company in a statement said it would work to get it repealed.

    However, Peri has also accused Disney in the past of adopting teachings of critical race theory in its company training. The comments touched on another top concern of DeSantis, who sought to ban employers from training workers about privilege and systemic racism when he signed the Stop Woke Act, parts of which were blocked by a federal judge from going into effect.

    “We’re seeing companies embracing CRT,” Peri said in his Zoom. “I’m gonna just share two – Walt Disney you’re quite familiar with. You know, down here in Orlando.”

    DeSantis has faced backlash in recent days over Florida’s board of education approving controversial new standards for teaching Black history in the state, which includes teaching “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” DeSantis has defended the state’s curriculum.

    Peri previously faced scrutiny after CNN’s KFile uncovered that the Orlando pastor had suggested tap water turned people gay. Peri disputed that he made the remark during a May 1 Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board meeting, saying from the dais, “I never said that. I don’t believe it, certainly.”

    The latest revelations about Peri’s beliefs come as DeSantis’ conflict with Disney is embroiled in dueling legal challenges. Peri is named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Disney, which alleges that the Florida governor has punished the company for exercising its First Amendment rights while describing his hand-picked board as a pawn in his “retribution campaign” against the entertainment giant.

    In its complaint, filed in the United States Circuit Court for the Northern District of Florida, Disney alleged DeSantis picked board members who would “censor Disney’s speech and discipline the Company” and that DeSantis’ action against the company “threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”

    Peri, meanwhile, voted with the rest of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board to sue Disney in state court. In the past week, a Central Florida judge rejected Disney’s request to dismiss the state lawsuit. In the federal case, lawyers for DeSantis have asked the court to delay a trial until after the presidential election while Disney attorneys suggested a timeline that would put the case before jurors next July.

    The board installed by DeSantis has said much of its power was stripped by Disney in an agreement reached before the governor’s appointees took over in February.

    Since then, DeSantis and the board have focused on clawing back authority while threatening to develop the land around Disney – including by building a prison or a competing theme park next to Disney World.

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  • Takeaways from the arraignment of Donald Trump in the special counsel’s election subversion case | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from the arraignment of Donald Trump in the special counsel’s election subversion case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in a Washington, DC, federal courthouse Thursday to federal criminal charges stemming from his plots to overturn the 2020 election, in a 27-minute proceeding where the first flashes of the defense’s tactics emerged.

    It was the third occasion that Trump was arraigned on criminal charges this year, and the hearing marked the public debut of the team of lawyers in special counsel Jack Smith’s office who will be leading the prosecution.

    Here are takeaways from the hearing:

    In the classified documents case that Smith has also brought against the former president in June, the Trump team has sought to slow-walk the schedule for the proceedings. There were hints of a similar strategy in the first hearing in the election subversion case.

    Much of Thursday’s hearing was staid and to-script. But the tone sharpened when the judge said the prosecutors should file recommendations for the trial date and length in seven days, and that the Trump team should respond within seven days after that.

    Trump attorney John Lauro told the judge that they would need to look at the amount of evidence they’ll be receiving from the government – which he said could be “massive” — before they could address that question.

    “There is no question in our mind, your honor, that Mr. Trump is entitled to a fair and just trial,” Lauro said, nodding both to Trump’s right to a speedy trial as well as his right to due process.

    Prosecutor Thomas Windom previewed that the special counsel would propose this case unfolding under a normal timeline under the Speedy Trial Act, which sets a time limit – unless certain exemptions are sought – for criminal cases to go to trial.

    Judge Tanya Chutkan intends to schedule a trial date at an August 28 hearing, a magistrate judge said Thursday. Before the trial, Chutkan may need to preside over disputes over whether the case should be dismissed to do legal flaws, when the trial should start and what evidence can be presented to a jury.

    Trump may argue that a trial should wait until after the 2024 election, an argument his legal team made unsuccessfully in the classified documents case, and his lawyers have also previewed efforts to seek a change of venue for the case, with claims that the DC jury pool is politically biased against the former president and 2024 Republican front-runner.

    There’s likely to be more added to the pile of legal problems on the former president’s plate.

    In Georgia, in the coming weeks, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to bring charges in her election subversion probe and it’s possible that Trump will be indicted in that.

    And then there’s the other case from Smith alleging Trump mishandled classified documents from his White House and then obstructed the probe into the materials. That case is currently scheduled to go trial next May, and there will be regular pre-trial proceedings (at which, Trump is not required to appear) before that. There’s also the criminal case that Manhattan prosecutors brought against Trump for a 2016 campaign hush money scheme, currently slated for trial in March.

    Additionally there’s number of civil lawsuits he faces, including a second defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, well as the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against his family and businesses.

    This court calendar is overlaid against his 2024 campaign schedule as well. The first Republican presidential debate, for instance, is on August 23.

    Though Trump will not be required to appear in court for hearings on pre-trial matters, he may seek to do so, if he embraces a strategy of making a spectacle out of the election subversion case. Speaking on the airport tarmac, Trump made brief remarks that the prosecution was political after Thursday’s hearing, and he routinely fundraises off of every new development putting him in deeper legal trouble.

    Thursday marked the public debut of the Smith team that will handle the election subversion prosecution. (Some of the special counsel lawyers who are leading the classified documents case were previously involved in the public proceedings stemming from the lawsuit Trump filed last year challenging the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago).

    Smith himself attended the hearing, as he did for Trump’s first appearance in the classified documents case in Florida earlier this year. As the courtroom waited for the hearing to start, Smith and Trump occasionally looked over at one another – Smith looking towards Trump more often than Trump looked over to him.

    Windom – who moved from the US attorney’s office in Maryland to play a central role in the federal election subversion investigation, spoke on behalf of the government Thursday. Also at the prosecutors’ table was Molly Gaston, an alum of the DC US attorney’s public integrity section, which handles some of the most politically sensitive cases for the Justice Department.

    Gaston was a lead prosecutor on last year’s contempt of Congress case against ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and also worked on the prosecutions of Rick Gates – a former Trump campaign aide – and Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman. Gaston was also present in the courtroom Tuesday when the foreperson of the grand jury for the 2020 election probe returned the indictment against Trump.

    Trump was represented by Lauro and Todd Blanche at Thursday’s hearing. Lauro is a relatively recent addition to the Trump legal team and is handling the 2020-election related matters.

    Blanche, meanwhile, has been across several Trump cases. He is representing Trump in Smith’s classified documents prosecution as well is in the 2016 campaign hush money case brought by Manhattan’s district attorney.

    Evan Corcoran, who has not formally entered an appearance in the case, attended the hearing, sitting on the row in the courtroom well behind the defense table.

    Lauro did the talking for the defense at Thursday’s hearing. He’s also made himself a prominent defender of the former president in the public arena, with multiple appearance in recent days on CNN and other networks.

    While the defense lawyers were mostly there Thursday to walk Trump through the steps of a first appearance and arraignment, Lauro had the opportunity to show the vigor with which he’ll argue on behalf of his client. He didn’t get into the substantive defense arguments that he has previewed in TV hits, but his insistence that the Trump team may need more time before nailing down a trial schedule was emphatic.

    “All that we would ask, your honor, is the time to fairly defend our client. And to do that we need a little time,” he said.

    While Trump’s hearing Thursday largely followed the script of the arraignments he’s had in the classified documents and the 2016 hush money criminal cases against him. But it was happening in a courthouse that has had to constantly had to process and re-process the violence of January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that his election lies helped provoke.

    For the last two-and-a-half years since the attack, the former president has been a stalking horse in the DC courthouse, which has hosted the proceedings for more than 1,000 Trump supporters who have been have been charged for the riot.

    Judges have obliquely acknowledged the role the former president played in egging on the mob, while recounting the direct view they had to the violence that day. Defense attorneys and prosecutors have argued over how much of the blame should be placed on him. Metropolitan and Capitol police officers are frequently seen in the courthouse to testify about the physical and psychological trauma they suffered from the riot. And defendants and their families, in their pleas for mercy, have invoked Trump as well.

    In the election subversion case, Trump’s attorneys have previewed arguments that the case should be moved elsewhere, given the city’s political bent. But the DC federal courthouse is where hundreds of his supporters have received fair trials, with some securing acquittals, in the Capitol mob cases.

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  • 21 Donald Trump election lies listed in his new indictment | CNN Politics

    21 Donald Trump election lies listed in his new indictment | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol was “fueled by lies” told by former President Donald Trump. The indictment of Trump on four new federal criminal charges, all related to the former president’s effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, lays out some of those lies one by one.

    Even in listing 21 lies, the 45-page indictment does not come close to capturing the entirety of Trump’s massive catalogue of false claims about the election. But the list is illustrative nonetheless – highlighting the breadth of election-related topics Trump was dishonest about, the large number of states his election dishonesty spanned, and, critically, his willingness to persist in privately and publicly making dishonest assertions even after they had been debunked to him directly.

    Here is the list of 21.

    1. The lie that fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 election, that Trump “had actually won,” and that the election was “stolen.” (Pages 1 and 40-41 of the indictment)

    Trump’s claim of a stolen election whose winner was determined by massive fraud was (and continues to be) his overarching lie about the election. The indictment asserts that Trump knew as early as 2020 that his narrative was false – and had been told as such by numerous senior officials in his administration and allies outside the federal government – but persisted in deploying it anyway, including on January 6 itself.

    2. The lie that fake pro-Trump Electoral College electors in seven states were legitimate electors. (Pages 5 and 26)

    The indictment alleges that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators “organized” the phony slates of electors and then “caused” the slates to be transmitted to Vice President Mike Pence and other government officials to try to get them counted on January 6, the day Congress met to count the electoral votes.

    3. The lie that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have affected the outcome of the election. (Pages 6 and 27)

    Attorney General William Barr and other top Justice Department officials had told Trump that his claims of major fraud had proved to be untrue. But the indictment alleges that Trump still sought to have the Justice Department “make knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted states through a formal letter under the Acting Attorney General’s signature, thus giving the Defendant’s lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the targeted states to replace legitimate Biden electors with the Defendant’s.”

    4. The lie that Pence had the power to reject Biden’s electoral votes. (Pages 6, 32-38)

    Pence had repeatedly and correctly told Trump that he did not have the constitutional or legal right to send electoral votes back to the states as Trump wanted. The indictment notes that Trump nonetheless repeatedly declared that Pence could do so – first in private conversations and White House meetings, then in tweets on January 5 and January 6, then in Trump’s January 6 speech in Washington at a rally before the riot – in which Trump, angry at Pence, allegedly inserted the false claim into his prepared text even after advisors had managed to temporarily get it removed.

    5. The lie that “the Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.” (Page 36)

    The indictment alleges that the day before the riot, Trump “approved and caused” his campaign to issue a false statement saying Pence agreed with him about having the power to reject electoral votes – even though Trump knew, from a one-on-one meeting with Pence hours prior, that Pence continued to firmly disagree.

    6. The lie that Georgia had thousands of ballots cast in the names of dead people. (Pages 8 and 16)

    The indictment notes that Georgia’s top elections official – Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – a republican – explained to Trump in a phone call on January 2, 2021 that this claim was false, but that Trump repeated it in his January 6 rally speech anyway. Raffensperger said in the phone call and then in a January 6 letter to Congress that just two potential dead-voter cases had been discovered in the state; Raffensperger said in late 2021 that the total had been updated and stood at four.

    7. The lie that Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than voters. (Pages 8 and 20)

    The indictment notes that Trump’s acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue had both told him that this claim was false, but he kept making it anyway – including in the January 6 rally speech.

    8. The lie that there had been a suspicious “dump” of votes in Detroit, Michigan. (Pages 9 and 17)

    The indictment notes that Barr, the attorney general, told Trump on December 1, 2020 that this was false – as CNN and others had noted, supposedly nefarious “dumps” Trump kept talking about were merely ballots being counted and added to the public totals as normal – but that Trump still repeated the false claim in public remarks the next day. And Barr wasn’t the only one to try to dissuade Trump from this claim. The indictment also notes that Michigan’s Republican Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, had told Trump in an Oval Office meeting on November 20, 2020 that Trump had lost the state “not because of fraud” but because Trump had “underperformed with certain voter populations.”

    9. The lie that Nevada had tens of thousands of double votes and other fraud. (Page 9)

    The indictment notes that Nevada’s top elections official – Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, also a Republican – had publicly posted a “Facts vs. Myths” document explaining that Nevada judges had rejected such claims.

    10. The lie that more than 30,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona. (Pages 9 and 11)

    The indictment notes that Trump put the number at “over 36,000” in his January 6 speech – even though, the indictment says, his own campaign manager “had explained to him that such claims were false” and Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican who had supported Trump in the election, “had issued a public statement that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in Arizona.”

    11. The lie that voting machines in swing states had switched votes from Trump to Biden. (Page 9)

    This is a reference to false conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems machines, which Trump kept repeating long after it was thoroughly debunked by his own administration’s election cybersecurity security arm and many others. The indictment says, “The Defendant’s Attorney General, Acting Attorney General, and Acting Deputy Attorney General all had explained to him that this was false, and numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines.”

    12. The lie that Dominion machines had been involved in “massive election fraud.” (Page 12)

    The indictment notes that Trump, on Twitter, promoted a lawsuit filed by an alleged co-conspirator, whom CNN has identified as lawyer Sidney Powell, that alleged “massive election fraud” involving Dominion – even though, the indictment says, Trump privately acknowledged to advisors that the claims were “unsupported” and told them Powell sounded “crazy.”

    13. The lie that “a substantial number of non-citizens, non-residents, and dead people had voted fraudulently in Arizona.” (Page 10)

    The indictment alleges that Trump and an alleged co-conspirator, whom CNN has identified as former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, made these baseless claims on a November 22, 2020 phone call with Bowers; the indictment says Giuliani never provided evidence and eventually said, at a December 1, 2020 meeting with Bowers, “words to the effect of, ‘We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.”

    14. The lie that Fulton County, Georgia elections workers had engaged in “ballot stuffing.” (Pages 13 and 14)

    This is the long-debunked lie – which Trump has continued to repeat in 2023 – that a video had caught two elections workers in Atlanta breaking the law. The workers were simply doing their jobs, and, as the indictment notes, they were cleared of wrongdoing by state officials in 2020 – but Trump continued to make the claims even after Raffensperger and Justice Department officials directly and repeatedly told him they were unfounded.

    15. The lie that thousands of out-of-state voters cast ballots in Georgia. (Page 16)

    The indictment notes that Trump made this claim on his infamous January 2, 2021 call with Raffensperger, whose staff responded that the claim was inaccurate. An official in Raffensberger’s office explained to Trump that the voters in question had authentically moved back to Georgia and legitimately cast ballots.

    16. The lie that Raffensperger “was unwilling, or unable,” to address Trump’s claims about a “‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more.” (Page 16)

    In fact, contrary to this Trump tweet the day after the call, Raffensperger and his staff had addressed and debunked all of these false Trump claims.

    17. The lie that there was substantial fraud in Wisconsin and that the state had tens of thousands of unlawful votes. (Page 21)

    False and false. But the indictment notes that Trump made the vague fraud claim in a tweet on December 21, 2020, after the state Supreme Court upheld Biden’s win, and repeated the more specific claim about tens of thousands of unlawful votes in the January 6 speech.

    18. The lie that Wisconsin had more votes counted than it had actual voters. (Page 21)

    This, like Trump’s similar claim about Pennsylvania, is not true. But the indictment alleges that Trump raised the claim in a December 27, 2020 conversation with acting attorney general Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Donoghue, who informed him that it was false.

    19. The lie that the election was “corrupt.” (Page 28)

    The indictment alleges that when acting attorney general Rosen told Trump on the December 27, 2020 call that the Justice Department couldn’t and wouldn’t change the outcome of the election, Trump responded, “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” (Deputy attorney general Donoghue memorialized the reported Trump remark in his handwritten notes, which CNN reported on in 2021 and which were subsequently published by the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot.)

    20. The lie that Trump won every state by hundreds of thousands of votes. (Page 34)

    The indictment says that, at a January 4, 2021 meeting intended to convince Pence to unlawfully reject Biden’s electoral votes and send them back to swing-state legislatures, Pence took notes describing Trump as saying, “Bottom line-won every state by 100,000s of votes.” This was, obviously, false even if Trump was specifically talking about swing states won by Biden rather than every state in the nation.

    21. The lie that Pennsylvania “want[s] to recertify.” (Page 38)

    Trump made this false claim in his January 6 speech. In reality, some Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania had expressed a desire to at least delay the congressional affirmation of Biden’s victory – but the state’s Democratic governor and top elections official, who actually had election certification power in the state, had no desire to recertify Biden’s legitimate win.

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  • Trump says he’ll appear at civil fraud trial in New York on Monday | CNN Politics

    Trump says he’ll appear at civil fraud trial in New York on Monday | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump said he will go to court in New York for his civil fraud trial on Monday.

    “I’m going to Court tomorrow morning to fight for my name and reputation,” he posted on Truth Social Sunday evening.

    Trump had been expected to attend, and law enforcement and court employees had already been making security preparations for his potential appearance at the courthouse in Lower Manhattan on Monday and possibly Tuesday.

    Trump’s plans started to become clear after a federal judge in Florida granted his request to postpone a deposition in a separate case because it would conflict with the start of the New York trial.

    The former president will fly to New York City on Sunday evening following a campaign event in Ottumwa, Iowa, and will spend the night at Trump Tower in Manhattan, three sources familiar with his schedule said.

    The civil fraud case – brought in September 2022 by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Trump, his eldest sons, their companies and several executives – will begin at 10 a.m. Monday.

    Last week, the judge overseeing the case dealt Trump a major blow in ruling that the former president is liable for fraud and that he overvalued his properties on his financial statements for a decade.

    The ruling came in response to the lawsuit by James, who is seeking $250 million in damages, a ban on the Trumps from serving as officers of a business in New York, and a ban on the company from engaging in business transactions for five years.

    This story and headline have been updated with Trump saying he’ll go to court.

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  • RFK Jr. is polling high for an independent. But it may not last | CNN Politics

    RFK Jr. is polling high for an independent. But it may not last | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce Monday that he is dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary and will run as an independent. The move would come after Kennedy’s calls for a debate with President Joe Biden went nowhere and with Biden continuing to hold a 50-point advantage in primary polling.

    But while Kennedy’s bid for the Democratic nomination was largely inconsequential, he could play a big role as an independent candidate in determining the winner of the general election.

    The polling on an independent run by Kennedy is limited, but the data we do have suggests he would start out as one of the strongest third-party or independent candidates this century.

    A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this past week among likely voters finds former President Donald Trump at 40%, Biden at 38% and Kennedy at 14% in a hypothetical November 2024 matchup. The 2-point difference between Biden and Trump looks a lot like other surveys we’ve seen and is well within the margin of error.

    But from a historical perspective, the 14% for Kennedy is quite unusual. Consider Gary Johnson, the 2016 Libertarian nominee for president. Like this cycle, the two major party nominees in 2016 (Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump) were unpopular. Johnson, though, appears to never have hit 14% in any poll when matched up against Clinton and Trump.

    Indeed, I can’t find any instance of an eventual third-party or independent candidate getting to 14% in a national poll since Ross Perot in the 1996 cycle.

    Now, the chance of Kennedy garnering 14% of the vote next November is not high. Non-major-party candidates almost always fade down the stretch.

    We can see this, again, by using the Johnson example from 2016. The former New Mexico governor polled at 4% or above in every national poll before September 2020 that met CNN’s standards for publication. He averaged 8% of the vote in those polls and frequently registered in the double digits.

    Johnson ended up getting a mere 3% come Election Day.

    And he isn’t alone. At one point in the 1992 campaign, independent Perot led both major-party nominees; he ultimately ended up a distant third. Independent John Anderson was often polling in the 20s in national surveys of the 1980 election, before getting less than 7% that November.

    We obviously don’t know if or how much Kennedy’s polling might change between now and the election. Still, even if he ends up with the same level of support as Johnson, it could make a big difference.

    At the moment, Biden and Trump are close in the national polls. Some surveys have Biden slightly ahead. Others give Trump the edge. The same is true in swing states like Pennsylvania, where Biden and Trump are within the margin of error of each other.

    If Kennedy takes disproportionately from either Biden or Trump, it could tip the balance of the election.

    The question, therefore, is: Which one of them should fear a Kennedy candidacy more?

    The answer is far from clear at this early stage. Although Kennedy has so far been running in the Democratic primary, his favorability ratings are far higher among Republicans. He was just announced as a speaker at an upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference event, after all.

    Still, most of Kennedy’s admirers on the GOP side also hold a favorable view of Trump, according to a Quinnipiac University poll from last month. It’s tough to see Trump-supporting Republicans voting for Kennedy, even if they like him too.

    When you drill down to Democrats (and independents who lean their way) and Republicans (and GOP-leaning independents) who don’t hold a favorable view of their party’s front-runners, Kennedy is about equally liked. His favorability rating among this group of Democrats is 31%, while it’s 32% among this group of Republicans.

    In the Ipsos poll of a potential general election, Kennedy got 12% from Republicans and 9% from Democrats. This isn’t a big difference, but you could see it helping Biden in a very close election.

    The Ipsos poll also found that when an unnamed third-party candidate is matched up against Biden and Trump, Biden comes in with 43% to Trump’s 42%. That 1-point deficit for Trump (within the margin of error) is worse for him than his 2-point lead (again, within the margin of error) when Kennedy is included instead of a generic third-party candidate. Kennedy’s presence on the ballot could therefore benefit Republicans a tad more.

    One thing that does seem true from the Ipsos and Quinnipiac data is that among voters who either didn’t vote in 2020 or aren’t likely to vote this time around, Kennedy has better net favorability ratings and trails the front-runners by a narrower margin.

    This means Kennedy could drive up voter turnout but still not affect the election outcome.

    The race between Biden and Trump is so close, though, that I’m not sure either side wants to risk a Kennedy candidacy potentially taking votes away from them.

    We’ll see what happens over the next 13 months.

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  • Biden maintains his domestic focus, even as Middle East crisis consumes his time | CNN Politics

    Biden maintains his domestic focus, even as Middle East crisis consumes his time | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The vast majority of President Joe Biden’s time at the White House this week has been spent confronting the crisis in Israel, including four phone calls with his Israeli counterpart and well north of a dozen briefings from his national security team.

    But, in a sign of the political crosscurrents, Biden has also been keeping most of his regularly scheduled programming, including a Rose Garden speech about “junk fees” and an address to a national group of firefighters.

    The balancing act continued Friday in Philadelphia, where Biden visited a port terminal to announce the locations of seven new regional hubs to manufacture hydrogen – an event the White House had been planning well before the horrors of last weekend’s Hamas attack and gave no thought to canceling.

    The dueling focuses – foreign and domestic – have at moments felt somewhat jarring. Biden’s outrage and fury at the images emerging from Israel has translated into some of his most forceful public speaking as president, making it somewhat dissonant to hear him deliver more routine speeches about airline fees, firefighter pay and the manufacture of hydrogen.

    They also reflect a governing reality for an incumbent president in the middle of a campaign: elections are rarely won on foreign policy, and keeping the world from spiraling into war is only one part of the job.

    Appearing overly focused abroad could be politically perilous for Biden, who was already contending with waning public support for the war in Ukraine. He may be a foreign policy president, but Americans still view the economy poorly, and his advisers continue to believe an economic message can break through.

    White House officials said they assessed Biden’s schedule following last weekend’s attacks and determined what events to maintain and which to cancel. They did scrap some of their plans and replaced them with remarks focused on Israel.

    The vast majority of Biden’s time in the residence and West Wing has been consumed by the foreign crisis. A White House list showed his briefings and phone calls stretching from morning until evening, including pre- and post-phone call meetings with his national security team following his conversations with Netanyahu and other regional leaders.

    Despite that focus, he has also made time for his domestic agenda. He met Thursday with a group of American business leaders, including executives at Target and IBM, to discuss “Bidenomics.”

    And officials left in place items like the junk fee event, which Biden used to appeal to Americans tired of seeing prices tick up due to hidden costs.

    “Folks are tired of being taken advantage of and played for suckers,” Biden said during remarks in the Rose Garden.

    One of Biden’s potential – though, according to polls, unlikely – Republicans challengers thought the moment seemed off.

    “I don’t know why Joe Biden is doing press conferences in the Rose Garden talking about something other than America’s role as leader of the free world and the fact that there are Americans being held hostage in Gaza,” former Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview on Fox News.

    The White House says Biden’s role is multifold and requires his attention across areas foreign and domestic. He’s also due to deliver remarks at a wind power facility in Pueblo, Colorado, on Monday.

    “The president is going to make Americans a priority. He has to do multiple things at once. That’s what you’re going to see the president do,” press secretary Karine Jean Pierre said Thursday.

    “He’s going to continue to talk about what he’s doing to bring back manufacturing, to create good-paying jobs,” she said. “That’s something that Americans also want to hear from (him).”

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  • When Joe Biden met Golda Meir, it was a much different time of unrest | CNN Politics

    When Joe Biden met Golda Meir, it was a much different time of unrest | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    It’s a story President Joe Biden has told repeatedly in recent days, and it’s meant to demonstrate his long history supporting Israel.

    Biden frequently recounts his meeting with Golda Meir, the trailblazing first and only woman to serve as Israel’s prime minister.

    When they met in 1973, she was in her 70s, and Biden, then 30, was in his first year of a decades-long Senate career.

    When he told the story Wednesday during an appearance in Tel Aviv with Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, he told it correctly, noting that it was just before the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

    The important part of the story is the ending, which occurs as they’re standing shoulder to shoulder while a photograph is being taken. (Note: CNN’s photo editors were unable to find a photo of Biden and Meir standing together.)

    BIDEN: Without her looking at me, she said to me, knowing I’d hear her, “Why do you look so worried, Senator Biden?” And I said, “Worried?” Like, “Of course, I’m worried.” And she looked at me and – she didn’t look, she said, “We don’t worry, senator. We Israelis have a secret weapon. We have nowhere else to go.”

    Well, today, I say to all of Israel: The United States isn’t going anywhere either. We’re going to stand with you.

    He told the same story earlier in the day, although he was off on a key detail. Speaking before he met with Israelis impacted by the terror attacks there, he said the meeting took place “just before the Six-Day War,” which occurred in 1967, before Meir was prime minister and before Biden was a senator.

    But the ending of the story is always essentially the same. Here’s how he told it during the community event.

    BIDEN: And we’re standing there having a photograph taken like you and I are standing, looking at the press. And she – without looking at me, she turned and she – like this, and she said, “You look worried, Senator.” I said, “I am.” She said, “Don’t worry, we Jews have a secret weapon in our fight: We have no place else to go.”

    Well, the truth of the matter is, if there weren’t an Israel, we’d have to invent one. The truth of the matter is that I believe that yo- – as I went home and said – I got in trouble at the time, but it was true: You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.

    He has conflated these two events – the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and the Six-Day War of 1967 – before, as CNN’s fact-check team reported in 2021.

    Coincidentally, there’s a new movie version of Meir’s story, “Golda,” starring Helen Mirren and focused on the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

    It is worth learning some of the history of these two conflicts because they still have importance today.

    It was during the June 1967 Six-Day War that Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt, Syria and Jordan and seized control of the Gaza Strip, which had been under the control of Egypt, along with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Syria’s Golan Heights and Jordan’s West Bank, including the entire city of Jerusalem.

    During the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar with the aim of reclaiming land. The war led to an oil embargo by Arab nations against the US when the US supported Israel.

    RELATED: Gaza explained

    While the war ended in less than three weeks, it would take nearly nine more years for Israel to cede back control of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, a process that was completed in 1982 after the 1978 Camp David Accords led to a peace treaty between the countries.

    Israel continued to occupy the Gaza Strip until 2005, when it withdrew soldiers and settlers. Jordan, which had once controlled the other Palestinian area, the West Bank, recognized Israel in 1994, and Israelis have continued to build settlements there.

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  • US military responded to Chinese and Russian vessels near Alaska | CNN Politics

    US military responded to Chinese and Russian vessels near Alaska | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A Russian and Chinese naval patrol consisting of several vessels operated off the coast of Alaska last week, defense officials and lawmakers said over the weekend – a show of force that prompted a US military response but did not pose a threat to the US or Canada, a US Northern Command spokesperson told CNN.

    NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defense Command deployed planes and ships to monitor the Russian and Chinese patrol, which stayed in international waters, the spokesperson said.

    Alaska’s Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski said in a statement Saturday that a total of 11 Russian and Chinese vessels had been operating near the Aleutian Islands, and were met in response by four US Navy destroyers. Murkowski said that she and Sullivan had been in “close contact with leadership from Alaska Command for several days now and received detailed classified briefings about the foreign vessels that are transiting U.S. waters in the Aleutians.”

    Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told CNN in a statement that “according to the annual cooperation plan between the Chinese and Russian militaries, naval vessels of the two countries have recently conducted joint maritime patrols in relevant waters in the western and northern Pacific Ocean. This action is not targeted at any third party and has nothing to do with the current international and regional situation.”

    Sullivan said that Chinese and Russian vessels came similarly close to Alaska last summer and were encountered by a US Coast Guard ship on a routine patrol at the time – a “tepid” response, the senator added, that led him to press senior military leaders to be ready with a more robust response in the future.

    “For that reason, I was heartened to see that this latest incursion was met with four U.S. Navy destroyers, which sends a strong message to (Chinese President) Xi Jinping and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that the United States will not hesitate to protect and defend our vital national interests in Alaska,” Sullivan said.

    Blake Herzinger, a research fellow at the United States Studies Center in Australia, echoed the NORTHCOM repsonse that the Chinese and Russian warships were not a threat and acted according to international law just as US Navy vessels do when operating off the Chinese or Russian coasts.

    But he said the US statement affirming the navigation rights of the foreign warships was in contrast to reactions from Beijing to similar US Navy sailings.

    “Chinese responses to similar operations in the Indo-Pacific … hype up imagined threats and broadcast their military response as efforts to eject invaders from their waters,” Herzinger said.

    Russia and China have intensified their defense and economic partnership considerably since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, according to a July US intelligence report, and the countries have repeatedly pledged to strengthen their military ties.

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  • GOP senator says Trump should drop out and calls classified documents case ‘almost a slam dunk’ | CNN Politics

    GOP senator says Trump should drop out and calls classified documents case ‘almost a slam dunk’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy described the case against former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents as “almost a slam dunk” and said he thinks Trump should drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

    “I mean, you’re just asking me my opinion. But he will lose to Joe Biden, if you look at the current polls,” he told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “State of the Union.”

    “I think any Republican on that stage in Milwaukee will do a better job than Joe Biden. And so I want one of them to win. If former President Trump ends up getting the nomination, but cannot win a general, that means we will have four more years of policies which have led to very high inflation … and to many other things which I think have been deleterious to our country’s future,” the Louisiana senator said.

    The comments from Cassidy, who was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in 2021 at his second impeachment trial, mark some of his strongest criticism of Trump to date. They come as the various charges against Trump continue to dominate the GOP primary, with the former president widely viewed as the party’s front-runner.

    Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election and on dozens of federal counts related to the special counsel investigation into mishandling of classified documents. He also faces charges in Georgia over efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, and in New York, where he is accused of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush-money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

    Trump has denied all wrongdoing and deemed many of the cases politically motivated.

    Of the 91 charges against Trump in the four different criminal cases spanning four different jurisdictions, Cassidy called those related to mishandling classified documents “almost a slam dunk.” He mentioned the recording of the 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump discussed holding secret documents he had not declassified. “If it’s proven, we may have a candidate for president who’s been convicted of a crime,” Cassidy said.

    He added that President Joe Biden “needs to be replaced, but I don’t think Americans would vote for someone who’s been convicted.”

    Cassidy previously told CNN that he didn’t think Trump would be able to win a general election, pointing to the GOP’s disappointing performance in last year’s midterm elections, when several candidates endorsed by the former president were defeated.

    When pressed on whether he would vote for Trump should he become the GOP nominee, Cassidy demurred.

    “I’m going to vote for a Republican,” Cassidy said.

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  • When John Roberts wants things done, he acts. What that means for ethics rules | CNN Politics

    When John Roberts wants things done, he acts. What that means for ethics rules | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Soon after he became chief justice of the United States, John Roberts faced what he believed was a “crisis” involving the judiciary: Federal judges were underpaid.

    What Roberts did next to address the situation stands in stark contrast to the way he has tiptoed through the current controversy over the Supreme Court’s integrity.

    As he pushed for a pay raise, he arranged a meeting at the White House to win support from then-President George W. Bush. He encouraged emissaries to talk to members of Congress. And he devoted an entire year-end report to the situation.

    “I am going to discuss only one issue – in an effort to increase even more the chances that people will take notice,” Roberts wrote on January 1, 2007. “That is important because the issue has been ignored far too long and has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis that threatens to undermine the strength and independence of the federal judiciary.”

    His concern: “I am talking about the failure to raise judicial pay.”

    Today, Roberts is at the center of the controversy over the court’s lack of transparency and absence of a formal code of ethics. The justices have been inconsistent in reporting travel and gifts bestowed on them by wealthy benefactors who may be trying to influence the court.

    The 68-year-old chief justice, who will be starting his 19th term in October, has moved with little apparent urgency.

    On Thursday, the issue was again in the spotlight as Justice Clarence Thomas filed a long-awaited annual financial disclosure form that pointed up his relationship with Texas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow. Thomas acknowledged that he had traveled on private jets at Crow’s expense for Dallas events and taken a separate vacation excursion to Crow’s opulent estate in the Adirondacks.

    Thomas also reported that Crow had in 2014 bought property in Savannah, Georgia, from Thomas and his family. Thomas’ lawyer said any delays or other filing errors were “inadvertent” and described public criticism of Thomas as “political blood sport.”

    Justice Roberts wrote ‘condescending’ letter to Senate when asked to testify about ethics

    The backdrop to Thursday’s filing by Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, both of whom had sought extensions from a May deadline, is the rising attention to the Supreme Court’s inability to monitor itself on this front. The justices’ extracurricular activities and lack of any process for resolving complaints has become as much a topic of public scrutiny as their rulings pushing the law in America to the right.

    For years, individual justices have said the court was considering its own code of conduct, as now covers lower court judges. But that consideration has never produced any public result.

    Members of Congress, advocacy groups and even some justices have looked to Roberts for leadership, to no avail.

    Roberts told an audience of lawyers in Washington, DC, in May: “I want to assure people that I am committed to making certain that we as a court adhere to the highest standards of conduct. We are continuing to look at things we can do to give practical effect to that commitment.”

    Yet when the justices left town for their summer recess in June, they were at a stalemate on whether a formal code was even necessary.

    In separate public appearances this summer, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan, when asked about a possible ethics code, said they didn’t want to get out ahead of Roberts on the issue.

    While Roberts has sent muted signals, he has made his resistance to congressional involvement clear.

    Roberts in April declined an invitation to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about judicial ethics, referring to “separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.”

    The Democratic-run Senate committee in July advanced legislation that would require a Supreme Court ethics code and a set of procedures for resolving complaints regarding their behavior. Given the tight partisan divide in the Senate and Republicans’ control of the House, the bill is unlikely to become law.

    So, much depends on the justices themselves.

    Roberts is known for formidable powers of persuasion. Before he became a US appeals court judge in 2003 and a Supreme Court justice in 2005, he was a star appellate advocate at the high court. But there are limits to his authority as chief, and the regard he engenders among individual colleagues varies.

    There may also be limits to the personal capital Roberts wants to put toward a dilemma that lies beyond the consideration of cases.

    The chief justice had made the judiciary’s pay raise a singular concern, and eventually judges and justices obtained full cost-of-living increases and higher pay.

    Unlike with judicial pay, which naturally generated support among black-robed colleagues, the ethics issue has defied consensus in Roberts’ ranks.

    Alito said in a Wall Street Journal interview published in July that he “voluntarily follows” the rules that apply to lower court judges, and he denigrated congressional efforts in this area: “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m going to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court – period.”

    Last month in Portland, Oregon, Kagan also referred to internal differences.

    “It’s not a secret for me to say that we have been discussing it,” she said, referring to a formal set of ethics rules. And it won’t be a surprise to know that the nine of us have a variety of views about this, as about most things. We’re nine free-thinking individuals.”

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  • US military leaders say Tuberville is aiding US adversaries with hold on military nominations | CNN Politics

    US military leaders say Tuberville is aiding US adversaries with hold on military nominations | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The three US military service secretaries went on the offensive against Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville over his ongoing hold on senior military nominations in an interview with CNN on Tuesday, saying he is aiding communist and autocratic regimes, and being used by adversaries like China against the US.

    “Our potential adversaries are paying attention,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told CNN’s Jake Tapper alongside Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth in an exclusive joint interview for “The Lead.” “It is affecting how they view the United States and our military capabilities and support for the military. This needs to stop.”

    Kendall said that at an embassy event in Washington, DC, an Air Force general officer was “taunted” by a Chinese colonel “about the way our democracy was working.”

    Del Toro echoed the same concerns, saying that as someone “born in a communist country, I would have never imagined one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting a communist and other autocratic regimes around the world.”

    “This is having a real negative impact and will continue to have an impact on our combat readiness,” said Del Toro, who was born in Cuba. “That is what the American people truly need to understand.”

    “It is just unprecedented to be attacking apolitical general officers and flag officers in this way. It is taking our apolitical military … and eroding its foundations,” Wormuth added.

    The three spoke a day after they wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which they said the months-long standoff is “putting our national security at risk.”

    The unusual public intervention from the secretaries in a congressional political dispute reflects the frustration felt at the highest levels of the US military over Tuberville’s holds, which have been in place for six months.

    “Senators have many legislative and oversight tools to show their opposition to a specific policy. They are free to introduce legislation, gather support for that legislation and pass it. But placing a blanket hold on all general and flag officer nominees, who as apolitical officials have traditionally been exempt from the hold process, is unfair to these military leaders and their families. And it is putting our national security at risk,” the leaders write.

    In an interview with CNN, Tuberville doubled down on his stance and expressed disappointment in Del Toro’s comments to Tapper about him.

    “It is concerning that you got people that are in secretary positions like that, that would say something like that in our country, instead of getting on the phone and calling me and saying ‘Coach, what are you doing?’ It just makes no sense,” he said.

    Tuberville, of Alabama, has delayed the confirmations of more than 300 top military nominees over his opposition to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing service members and their families who have to travel to receive abortion care. In the Senate, one senator can hold up nominations or legislation, and Tuberville’s stance has left three military services to operate without a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time in history.

    It’s possible to confirm each of the nominees one by one, but Senate Democrats have argued that would take up valuable floor time – despite a five-week recess taken in August. The Senate is reconvening on Tuesday.

    Without the replacements, the “foundation of America’s enduring military advantage is being actively eroded” by Tuberville, and the holds also have “a domino effect upending the lives of our more junior officers, too,” the leaders write.

    “We know officers who have incurred significant unforeseen expenses and are facing genuine financial stress because they have had to relocate their families or unexpectedly maintain two residences,” they write. “Military spouses who have worked to build careers of their own are unable to look for jobs because they don’t know when or if they will move. Children haven’t known where they will go to school, which is particularly hard given how frequently military children change schools already.”

    Wormuth mentioned Tuesday an Army general officer who has been unable to move their aging mother into their home because the hold on their nomination has kept them from moving into a new house as they’d planned.

    “Because that move isn’t happening, they are paying $10,000 a month right now month to keep the aging parent in an assisted living facility,” Wormuth said. “That is the kind of consequence that’s happening, and these are service members who have literally put their lives on the line for Americans for the last 20 years.”

    The op-ed concludes, “We believe that the vast majority of senators and of Americans across the political spectrum recognize the stakes of this moment and the dangers of politicizing our military leaders. It is time to lift this dangerous hold and confirm our senior military leaders.”

    “Chuck Schumer could confirm all of the service chiefs in one day—but he refuses. Instead he just took five weeks off. Clearly he is not worried about this affecting readiness,” Steven Stafford, a Tuberville spokesperson, told CNN.

    In July, Tuberville posted on X, “I didn’t start this. The Biden admin injected politics in the military and imposed an unlawful abortion policy on American taxpayers. I am trying to get politics out of the military.”

    Tuberville says the Pentagon is violating law with the reproductive health policies that include, among other things, a travel allowance for troops and their families who must travel to receive an abortion because of the state laws where they are stationed. Pentagon officials have pointed to a Justice Department memo that says the policies are lawful.

    The holds first began in March and Tuberville has held his ground despite mounting public pressure.

    Active-duty military spouses hand-delivered a petition to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Tuberville in July signed by hundreds of military family members who were “deeply concerned and personally impacted by Senator Tuberville blocking confirmation of senior military leaders.”

    By the end of this year, there will be more than 600 military officers up for nomination, including the nominee for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, who has been nominated by President Joe Biden to take over for Army Gen. Mark Milley.

    Among other positions, the chief of naval operations, Army chief of staff and Marine Corps commandant are serving in acting capacities. In some cases, the officer filling the role on a temporary basis is lower-ranking than the officer who was nominated to take the position; the Missile Defense Agency, for example, is being led by a one-star in an acting capacity despite the position typically being filled by a three-star general.

    Wormuth said Tuesday that she’s worried the hold will impact morale among lower-ranking officers.

    “I really worry that a lot of those officers who volunteer are going to walk away and basically say, ‘I don’t want to deal with this,’” she said, “‘If this is what it takes to be a general officer, I don’t want to do this.’”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Youngkin pardons Virginia father who was arrested at 2021 school board meeting | CNN Politics

    Youngkin pardons Virginia father who was arrested at 2021 school board meeting | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Friday pardoned a Loudoun County father who was arrested at a school board meeting in 2021 while seeking answers about his daughter’s sexual assault on school property.

    Scott Smith was charged with obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct for his behavior at the meeting, which took place shortly after his 15-year-old daughter was assaulted in her school’s bathroom in Ashburn, Virginia, according to the New York Times. Smith was convicted of both charges in 2021. Smith’s conviction for resisting arrest was later dismissed, and he eventually received a suspended sentence of 10 days in jail, according to CNN affiliate WJLA.

    “Scott Smith is a dedicated parent who’s faced unwarranted charges in his pursuit to protect his daughter. Scott’s commitment to his child despite the immense obstacles is emblematic of the parental empowerment movement that started in Virginia,” Youngkin said in a statement announcing the pardon.

    “In Virginia, parents matter and my resolve to empower parents is unwavering. A parent’s fundamental right to be involved in their child’s education, upbringing, and care should never be undermined by bureaucracy, school divisions or the state. I am pleased to grant Scott Smith this pardon and help him and his family put this injustice behind them once and for all,” he added.

    Deputies ultimately arrested a male student in connection with the sexual assault against Smith’s daughter, according to the Times. He was found guilty in that case and later pleaded no contest to a separate sexual assault case at a different school, the newspaper reported.

    Smith’s arrest at the school board meeting helped fuel a national political conversation around school choice and parental rights. Conservative media in particular highlighted the sexual assault case in an effort to promote anti-transgender talking points.

    Youngkin leaned heavily on these issues during his 2021 gubernatorial campaign, vowing on election night, “We’re going to embrace our parents, not ignore them.”

    Smith, in an interview with WJLA following his pardon, said: “I think it’s pretty clear and convincing to the public that what happened to me that day should have never happened. I’m glad that this is finally over.”

    He added that the experience has led him to believe that “in today’s America, getting a fair and free trial is next to impossible.”

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  • Trump’s indictments — and mug shot — are deepening his supporters’ anger and revving up their support | CNN Politics

    Trump’s indictments — and mug shot — are deepening his supporters’ anger and revving up their support | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    Phil Jensen wore a bright red T-shirt with Donald Trump’s mug shot and “NEVER SURRENDER!” printed on it to the former president’s rally in Rapid City, South Dakota, last week. The longtime state legislator loved the shirt so much, he planned on giving half a dozen to his friends and family.

    “He looks defiant,” Jensen said of the photo taken at an Atlanta jail after Trump was indicted over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

    “And I love it because he has every right to be,” the South Dakota Republican said. “He was railroaded.”

    In more than 40 interviews with CNN in Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota and Texas, Trump supporters said the 91 criminal charges in four separate cases against him have only deepened their support of the former president. They repeated Trump’s unfounded claims that he was the subject of a politically motivated “witch hunt” and said they believed the charges showed the system was rigged against him – and, by extension, them.

    A majority of Americans think that the charges against Trump are valid and that he should be prosecuted, recent polls show, but Trump maintains a tight grip on the Republican Party and his front-runner status in the 2024 GOP presidential primary is undisputed.

    “What they’re doing to him is persecution,” said Corey Bonner of Texas. “They’re going after an old American president, they’ve been going after him since the beginning, they haven’t stopped, and they’re not going to stop. And this is where we have to stand up and fight.”

    At a summer gathering for Alabama Republicans, 81-year-old retired schoolteacher Carolyn McNeese echoed Trump’s attacks on the prosecutors who have charged him and said she thought they were “evil.”

    “They want him out because they’re scared of him,” McNeese said.

    Those interviewed said they believed that President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was the one who needed to be charged and that Republicans faced a different standard under the justice system. And some said that perhaps Trump did commit crimes, but it didn’t change their opinion of him because, as Texas resident Bobby Wilson put it, “We all have sinned; we all have some things that we’ve done.”

    “He’s probably guilty, but it doesn’t matter,” said Jace Kirschenman, an 18-year-old in South Dakota who works in construction.

    He said nothing could deter him from voting for Trump next year.

    “You show me a perfect person in this world, and I’ll show you a blue pig with wings,” said Corey Shawgo, a 34-year-old truck driver in Pennsylvania who attended Trump’s rally in Erie. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

    Like many other Trump supporters interviewed, Scott Akers of Alabama immediately pointed to Hunter Biden when asked about Trump’s mounting legal peril.

    “We have something finally start to come out about the connection between Hunter Biden’s shady dealings and his father and then, like two days later, there’s a federal indictment,” Akers said. “The timing of it is very ironic.”

    The president’s son has been the subject of investigations by House Republicans and the federal Justice Department. The House GOP probe has so far failed to surface any evidence showing Joe Biden profited from his son’s business dealings, but it has found that the younger Biden used his father’s names to help advance deals. Separately, Hunter Biden was indicted on Thursday by special counsel David Weiss in connection to a gun he purchased in 2018.

    Intertwined with their outrage over the indictments, some Trump supporters are raising the specter of heightened political violence if Trump were to be convicted.

    “This country’s a powder keg. You know, we’ve ‘bout had it,” said Frank Yurisic, 76, who attended Trump’s Pennsylvania rally.

    “I think there could very well possibly be violence,” Yurisic said. “If they march on Washington, I’ll be one of the ones there. I don’t think they realize how upset the people are in this country about what’s going on.”

    The predictions of possible violence made by some Trump supporters in interviews with CNN echo Trump’s warnings of what could happen were he to be convicted.

    Before Trump’s first indictment in March, he had warned about “potential death and destruction” if a Manhattan grand jury were to indict him on charges related to a hush money payment to an adult film star. When asked in an Iowa radio interview in July how he thought his supporters would react if he did ultimately end up behind bars, Trump said, “I think it’s a very dangerous thing to even talk about because we do have a tremendously passionate group of voters.”

    “There’ll be backlash, and it’ll probably be severe,” said Jim Vanoy, an 80-year-old Trump supporter who lives in Alabama. He said he thought there would be a “good degree of violence” if Trump is convicted.

    Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow in the democracy, conflict and governance program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the US has seen “vastly increased” political violence since Trump took office in 2017.

    “He unleashed some of the worst parts of the American id in normalizing violence as a way to solve political differences. And so we’re seeing neighbors killing neighbors, people killing business owners over political disputes all over the country,” she said.

    But Kleinfeld pointed to the lengthy prison sentences meted out to some participants in the deadly January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as a potential deterrent to political violence. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison and Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the far-right Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years. Kleinfeld also noted the two-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed down to an Iowa man for threatening Arizona’s attorney general and a Phoenix-area election official.

    “What we’re seeing now is a summer of a lot of accountability, where people are starting to be held to account for violence, and that is the best possible thing for reducing future violence,” she said.

    Trump supporter Amanda Hamak-Leon and her boyfriend are seen at his Rapid City, South Dakota, rally on September 8, 2023.

    Trump continues to defend his supporters who were part of the January 6 mob and said in a recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that there was “love and unity” among those who had gathered in Washington that day.

    His lies about the 2020 election, which fueled the riot at the Capitol, were repeated on the campaign trail by his supporters in interviews with CNN. Many said they felt confident in Trump’s chances in a rematch with Biden in 2024.

    “Unless they convict him of something, I don’t care,” said Mark Roling, 63, of Pennsylvania. “In fact, I kind of like it. Every time they indict him, he gets stronger.”

    Trump has widened his polling lead over the rest of the GOP field since his first criminal charges were announced this spring, and his campaign has reported fundraising boosts in the wake of his indictments. That has vexed many Democrats, independents and more moderate Republican voters, who question how his supporters aren’t turned off by the serious and numerous criminal charges against Trump and believe the indictments should disqualify him from a second term as president.

    “He’s making a psychic connection between his troubles with government and people’s troubles with government. And it’s working,” said Craig Shirley, who has written four books on former President Ronald Reagan and has been a Republican strategist for decades.

    “So many Americans have had bad experiences with government over the years,” Shirley said. “They’ve had bad experiences with the IRS. They’ve had bad experiences with police forces. They’ve had bad experiences with school boards. They’ve had bad experiences with any manifestation of some form of government, and that has made them more and more anti-establishment.”

    Trump has been intentional on the campaign trail about making his supporters feel like his indictments are personal to them. “I’m being indicted for you,” he says at every rally. “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I’m just standing in their way.”

    “It’s very much like a family protecting one of their own,” Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP pollster, said of how Trump’s supporters have rallied around the former president.

    “He came down the escalator in 2015, saying, ‘I am doing this for you. I am your protector. I am the only one looking out for you. And an attack on me is an attack on you.’ And he has been beating that drum now for eight years, and it’s accepted as true by millions of his supporters,” Ayres said.

    The day after Trump was booked at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta, his campaign said it had the highest-grossing fundraising day of the entire campaign to date, raising $4.18 million. A few days later, the campaign said it had raked in nearly $3 million off mug shot merchandise alone.

    A vendor sells T-shirts featuring Trump's mug shot outside his Rapid City, South Dakota, rally on September 8, 2023.

    But the market for mug shot merchandise extends well beyond the official campaign store as private vendors see their sales skyrocket.

    “This is the new ‘Let’s Go Brandon,’” said Sam Smith, a private vendor at Trump’s Rapid City rally, referring to the right-wing slogan used to insult Joe Biden. Smith, who travels around the country to sell merchandise outside the former president’s events, said he made solid money for two years off “Let’s Go Brandon” products.

    Longtime Trump supporter Amanda Hamak-Leon bought matching mug shot T-shirts on Amazon that said “WANTED FOR PRESIDENT” for her and her boyfriend to wear to Trump’s rally in Rapid City.

    “It really ticked me off,” Hamak-Leon said of Trump’s indictments. “I just feel like now for six-plus years they’ve been going after him with anything that they can, taking shots in the dark. It just makes me like him more that he just keeps going and is not letting this stop him.”

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